Having finally got my life back this week, after getting the dreaded exam out of the way, I decided to have some time in the kitchen and experiment with a few things I'd been wanting to try for a lilttle while now.

Whilst plodding along with standard vanilla cupcakes is all well and good, I didn't want to get stuck in a rut and just do vanilla. I know this is going to sound a bit.. erm... sad maybe...  but I've taken to keeping a notebook in my handbag (or should that be bottomless pit), so that I can scribble down any ideas I have when I'm out and about; and it just means that my random and inane thoughts are kept safe so I don't forget them!

As it was the Boss' 60th this month, I offered to make a birthday cake, as you know I need all the practice I can get for the wedding cake... Anyway, with the exam and revision taking up most of time this week, I was running a bit low on available time. So I decided to take my experimentation to work and put those inane ramblings into practice in the kitchen. I'd got two ideas in my head that I wanted to try out, they aren't anything crazy and out of this world, but playing about with some flavours. These are based around the vanilla cupcake and buttercream recipes and first up was a strawberry and white chocolate cupcake...

What You'll Need

Basic vanilla cupcake recipe

Basic vanilla buttercream receipe

100g Waitrose Cooks Ingredients White Cooking Chocolate

1 handful of Waitrose Cooks Ingredients White Chocolate Chunks

50g Green and Blacks 70% chocolate

1 punnett of fresh strawberries

1 teaspoon vanilla caster sugar

What You'll Need to Do

Mix up your cupcakes using the basic vanilla cupcake recipe, and whilst you're doing this, its best to melt the white chocolate so it is ready to be added to the mixture

You can either melt your chocolate in the microwave, some of us don't have one, so I melt my chocolate in a small heatproof bowl that I stand in a small saucepan of smithering water. This melts the chocolate gently and it doesn't burn or scold

When your mix is ready, add the melted chocolate in it, adding it slowly and blend it in thoroughly, then add in a good handful of white chocolate chunks into the mix as well

Cooking time is the same, but I've been reducing my time at the moment from 20 minutes down to 17 minutes, as I was finding that the cupcake rose too much and the tops were overcooking 

As usual when you're happy that they are cooked through, left them in the baking tin to cool down and the place them onto a wire rack to cool properly

Whilst your cupcakes are baking, now's the time to melt some dark chocolate and half dip half of your strawberries. When you've coated your strawberries in as much chocolate as you want, you need to chill them so the chocolate hardens again. So not too make too much of a mess, and that you can easily pick up them afterwards, place the strawberries on a piece of greaseproof baking parchment and place the coated strawberies in the fridge to set

I wanted to have a real fruit buttercream, and I know you can get fruit purees from places like Squires, but there's nothing better than using fresh fruit. I know it's not quite yet English strawberry time, although we have flowers on our strawberry plants so we might get some early ones, I've have to use supermarket strawberries. Fresh puree is easy to get and any left over you can freezer and use as you need it.

The simplest way is to grab a handful of strawberries, a teaspoon of vanilla caster sugar and blitz them in the Magimix until you have a nice smooth puree. If you don't have a Magimix you can mash the strawberries with a fork and then push them through a sieve to achieve the same texture

To get your strawberry buttercream, make up the basic vanilla buttercream and then add 2 tablespoons of the fresh strawberry puree. Blend the buttercream well and taste, if you prefer a more fruitier taste add more puree until you get what to a point you like

Decorate to your hearts content as usual, but I've gone with my chocolate covered strawberries

Hope you like these and enjoy them too....

PS: Sorry about the photos, I took them late last night and my hands were a bit wobbly, next time I'll next the tripod out